DATE: Wednesday, March 5, 1997              TAG: 9703050001

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JOHN MURPHY 

                                            LENGTH:   86 lines

VIRGINIA CAN HELP FIGHT GLOBAL WARMING

The environmental bumper sticker ``Think globally, act locally'' seems tiny when pasted to the hulking 18-wheeler of global warming. The vast dimensions of climate change tempt us to defer to national governments and international agencies for a cure. However, world leaders and diplomats will be helpless to minimize global warming without the cumulative foundation of sound local environmental practices.

One way Virginia can help meet the global-warming challenge is by supporting the stricter air-pollution rules being proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency. These rules will place tighter limits on particulate matter and ozone, saving the lives of tens of thousands of Americans and improving the health of millions more.

Air pollution and global warming are two different threats, but they share a common cause - fossil fuel. Reducing fossil-fuel consumption helps both problems, and this is precisely what clean-air laws do by promoting efficiency and conservation. Think of it as a two-for-one deal.

But to take advantage of this deal, Virginia will need to reverse the present trend in its environmental management. In recent years, following a philosophy that sees environmental protection as bad for business, the commonwealth's political leadership has cut back on environmental inspections and fines, challenged the citizen's right to bring suit against polluters and downsized the Department of Environmental Quality.

This neglect has not yet resulted in a decline of Virginia's air quality, thanks to the far-reaching effects of the 1972 Clean Air Act. But if continued, Virginia's present policy would eventually erase gains in environmental quality which we now take for granted. (For a glimpse at the nonregulated alternative, visit the smog-choked streets of Taipei or Mexico City.)

Moreover, to play a positive role in the global community, Virginia needs to move forward on the environmental agenda, not back. On the logistical front, we cannot transform technology and energy policy - as a sustainable future demands - if we don't master the basics. On the political front, we cannot expect other peoples of the world, most of whom are poorer than we, to make sacrifices for the environment if we don't keep our own yard clean. These principles hold especially true for the monumental challenge of global warming.

Some potential consequences of global warming include loss of coastal lands, the spread of infectious disease and an increase of catastrophic storms. The most worrisome possibility is the threat to agriculture; with world carry-over grain stocks (the amount in storage when the new harvest begins) declining during the past eight years and reaching an all-time low in 1996, we can ill-afford the added stress which climate change might pose to crop production.

The good news on global warming is that the problem has finally been acknowledged by the scientific community and government leaders: The world's nations are preparing for a December climate summit aiming to set mandatory limits on greenhouse emissions. For Virginia, this will mean holding down fossil-fuel consumption.

Since international agreements will require more fuel conservation anyway, we might as well get used to the idea, and improve public health at the same time, by getting behind the new EPA air-pollution rules.

Reaching a global-warming agreement will be the most-difficult diplomatic task in history. The needed changes in energy use, agriculture and technology will reach to the heart of economic life in each of the world's nearly 200 countries, but in each differently. It will be much harder, for instance, for developing countries to achieve universal targets for carbon-dioxide reduction, given their development needs. Yet without their cooperation, the effort would be fruitless. This and myriad other complexities will test the skill of statesmen as never before.

They'll need all the help they can get.

The simple side of both the clean-air and global-warming debates will boil down to economy vs. environment. But the public has witnessed this debate for a long time, and has then repeatedly seen beyond, perhaps unconsciously or instinctively, to the more-complex matter of preserving our biological support system. Though environmentalism has lost many important battles and the struggle ahead is more daunting than ever, the groundwork has been laid for profound change in the way humanity does business with nature. Environmental consciousness is conveyed now through the mainstream - right there in the middle of the road with the 18-wheelers. The bumper stickers may be small, but there's a whole lot of 'em. MEMO: John Murphy is an environmental advocate and writer. As former

director of West Los Angeles SANE/FREEZE, he helped organize mass

civil-disobedience demonstrations at the U.S. Department of Energy's

Nevada Nuclear Test Site. As deputy to the mayor of West Hollywood, he

developed an ordinance to regulate styrofoam food packaging. He has

farmed organic vegetables, landscaped and grown a family since moving to

Virginia seven years ago.

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